The discovery of the four-sun planet by amateur scientists takes crowd sourcing to new heights. The expression, coined by Wired magazine editor Jeff Howe, describes tasks that are outsourced to a disparate group of people to come up with a solution.

In this case, the Planet Hunters group made data from NASA's $600 million Kepler telescope available to the public through its website and coordinates their findings with Yale astronomers.

In combing through the data, "Citizen scientists" Robert Gagliano and Kian Jek spied anomalies that confirmed the existence of the special planet, now known as PH1 -- short for Planet Hunters 1 -- the first heavenly body found by the online citizen science project.

The planet is a little bigger than Neptune, with a radius about six times greater than Earth.

"I celebrate this discovery for the wow-factor of a planet in a four-star system," said Natalie Batalha, a Kepler scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California.

"Most importantly, I celebrate this discovery as the fruit of exemplary human cooperation -- cooperation between scientists and citizens who give of themselves for the love of stars, knowledge, and exploration."